Toronto Sign Services uses scissor and boom lifts when installing wide-format printed graphics.
Photo courtesy Toronto Sign Services
Larger as needed
AIP Media, based in nearby Mississauga, Ont., owns six Dodge Caravans and a scissor lift, but only rents boom trucks on an as-needed basis.
“The site inspections determine whether they’re needed,” explains Tony Iacobelli, owner. “The scissor lift’s height is sufficient for most of our jobs, we can bring in scaffolding and each of our vans is like a little hardware store, filled with the tools for a variety of jobs, but sometimes we really need an articulating boom to get past an obstruction.”
To promote Toronto’s 2015 Pan American (Pan Am) Games, for instance, AIP rented 37-m (120-ft) long booms for outdoor graphic installations across the city. In another example, a crane with a basket was called for when installing a sign 61 m (200 ft) up a former elevator test shaft in Toronto that had been acquired by a kitchen company and was being rebranded.
“It took five minutes just to get up there,” says Iacobelli, “and then the installer needed a radio to communicate back and forth with the crane operator.”
And in some cases, even a crane is not sufficient. AIP made its name in the industry back in 2009, when Iacobelli and his team installed a building wrap 122 m (400 ft) up Vancouver’s Royal Centre. Given this context, they had to work from a window washers’ swing stage. The 4,831-m2 (52,000-sf) wrap still holds the title as the single biggest vinyl graphic ever installed in Canada.
With files from Radocy, Scott Powerline & Utility Equipment, Van Ladder, Chris’s Sign Service, Toronto Sign Services and AIP Media. For more information, visit www.radocy.com, www.scottpowerline.com, www.vanladder.com, www.chrissigns.com, www.torontosignservices.com and www.aip-media.com.
